December 14, 2022
Today in MSFS, to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday, I’m go to try out a unique made-in-America piece of innovation, the Rutan Long-EZ, over some uniquely prohibited American airspace: Washington, DC. The Long-EZ may just look kind of weird to you, but its story harkens back to the early days of aviation pioneers, and […]
December 14, 2022
Welcome back to Microsoft Flight Simulator where today I’ll be flying the Mitsubishi A6M2, Japan’s main fighter of World War II, famously known as the Zero. Introduced in 1940, the A6M was dubbed the Navy Type 0 carrier fighter or Reisen (零戦, “Zero Fighter”) for short, in reference to the Imperial Year 2600. To set […]
December 14, 2022
Welcome to Vancouver, British Columbia, where today in Microsoft Flight Simulator I’ll be flying the Lockheed L-10 Electra, an early all-metal airliner from the 1930s. The reason I’m in Vancouver is that this is based on a real airplane, the very first purchased by Trans-Canada Air Lines (which later became Air Canada) in 1937. This […]
December 13, 2022
Today in MSFS I’m checking out a rather odd bird called the EA-7 Edgley Optica, and I’m doing it at the location where it was developed, Old Sarum Airfield near Salisbury in southwest England. The Optica is the brainchild of British designer John Edgley, who envisioned it in the 1970s as a slow-flying alternative for […]
December 13, 2022
Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’m going to be flying the Beechcraft G35 V-tail Bonanza, a plane with a notorious reputation that gained it the nickname “Doctor Killer”. There’s a particular reason why I’m doing it today: 63 years ago, on February 3, 1959, a G35 Bonanza flying here, out of Mason City Municipal Airport […]
December 13, 2022
Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’m going to be flying an airplane that played an important but often forgotten role in the early history of aviation, the Dornier Do J “Wal”. Claude Dornier, born in 1884, was the son of a French wine merchant and his German wife. He grew up in Bavaria and graduated […]
December 13, 2022
Here’s a quick installment from Microsoft Flight Sim, about an airplane that – unless you live in the UK and trained for the RAF – you may never have heard of: the Grob G115E Tutor T1. Why is the Grob Tutor interesting? Because since 1998 it’s been the primary elementary training aircraft for the UK […]
December 13, 2022
Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’m going to fly an important World War II airplane you probably never heard of: the Bücker Bü 131 Jungmann, which served as the primary trainer for the German Luftwaffe. I’m going to fly it from the airport at Braunschweig (Brunswick), which was very close to where German pilots secretly […]
December 13, 2022
Today on Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’m flying a rather unusual airplane developed just before World War II, which aimed to make flying as easy as driving a car: the ERCO Ercoupe 415C. What’s so odd about it? It’s easy to miss. No rudder pedals. To understand why the Ercoupe has no rudder pedals, and was […]
December 13, 2022
Alright, I’ve messed around and figured out how to fly the “Darkstar” from the new “Top Gun” movie in Microsoft Flight Simulator. Let’s take a trip. The flight I’ll be taking will be from the Top Gun academy at Miramar, near San Diego, to Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington, DC. If I do everything […]